Since the recent publication of Simone Zelitch's fourth novel, Waveland (The Head and the Hand Press), there have been such a spate of racist and violent events in this country that one could be forgiven for believing we are still somehow mired in the hate and horror of the early 1960's.

In January of 1969, the Black Panther Party initiated the groundbreaking Free Breakfast for Children Program in San Francisco. The "Survival Program" flourished and spread nationwide, feeding thousands of hungry children and inspiring school lunch programs across the country.

Make no mistake, there truly are ghosts in Mississippi. Most often, they inhabit long forgotten places and toil with hopes that their mortal lives have not been lived in vain. A few years ago, I first traveled to a forgotten place to meet a forgotten man.

In 1964, at the height of the civil rights movement, the great organizer Ella Baker said: "Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest."

All were willing to step up to make a difference, to lead when it could be dangerous, and to let their lives be shining examples for others. We should remember them when we face stormy and cloudy weather in our national life and become bright rainbows of hope like them.

Last Saturday in Los Angeles, my friend of 50 years, Harry Belafonte, was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Oscar. And yesterday, while we were savoring this good news, the White House announced that James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schewerner would be posthumous recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Pieces of history that could help us think more clearly about today's movements for social change are often ignored or distorted in popular media or commercial textbooks. This is especially true in the treatment of "nonviolent" resistance in the Civil Rights Movement.

In this season between anniversaries from Brown v. Board of Education to Freedom Summer to the Civil Rights Act, some pose an unsettling question. They ask if the NAACP is relevant. Though the question is wearisome not worrisome, it must be answered.

We see and hear stories about the first days of school, school shopping, the buying of books, and the concern, hope, and joy, for those in preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school, and college

This question of citizenship and political representation is as important today as it was then -- yet the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is not even mentioned in many major U.S. history textbooks.

The disturbing nature of the frequency of recent news reports in which unarmed Black men have been killed by law enforcement officers is only exceeded by this fact: the act itself is deeply embedded into the racial fabric of our nation.

Like the Freedom Summer volunteers, each of these AmericCorps fellows chose to "touch the pain" in the lives of those who need legal assistance. That choice and that experience has changed their lives -- and will continue to do so -- in myriad ways.

We must make sure that our children and all of us know our history and that the atrocities that wiped out the lives of countless individuals who died for freedom and justice during the Civil Rights Movement -- including eight Black men whose bodies were only found as the FBI dredged Mississippi rivers and swamps searching for three other young men -- do not ever happen again. We must all do our part to create a safe and hopeful nation for every child.

After I was arrested with about 90 other Black college students during my senior year at Spelman College in March 1960 for helping organize and participating in student sit-ins at Atlanta's racially segregated restaurants, I wrote in my diary when I returned to Spelman's campus: "SOMETHING WORTH LIVING AND DYING FOR!"

The endless money of our opposition, the Supreme Court battering us at every turn, the nasty extremism of the right wing, and the immense size of the problems we face are all daunting, but we stand on the shoulders of those who faced much worst. We shouldn't forget that.

As the country marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, the landmark voting rights initiative that took place throughout the state of Mississippi in 1964, it's important to note the key but often overlooked role the arts and culture community played in the social change of that era.

In 1964, Mississippi was a place of terror, where local white citizens carried out brutal retaliation against blacks who believed they had the right to be first-class citizens. More than 1,000 people were arrested that summer.

I thought about his courage and commitment 50 years ago, the life of service he's lived since then, and I wondered if I would have had the awareness and strength of character to head south for Freedom Summer if I had been old enough in 1964.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no sufficiently powerful outside energy has made the commitment to bring all its lawful, nonviolent power to bear to achieve a two-state peace. So the violence worsens in a downward spiral of injustice.